The Small Publisher's Point of View

As a Senior Editor at Five Rivers Publishing, I can attest that this depiction of what life is like for a small publisher is pretty much dead on! Highly recommended reading for any author to see what it looks like from the other side of the desk.

The Publisher/Author Relationship
by James Roy Daley

One reason I signed on with Five Rivers is that the publisher seemed to have a handle on many of these issues and is in it for the long haul. She has steadily grown her business in a business-like way, while many, many others around her have faltered and died. But Daley's depiction of the things that can go wrong if you're not vigilant are absolutely accurate. (My publisher argues that this is more true of old publishing model, and that new POD/ebook model has fewer of these issues.)

It drives me crazy when I read in so many author blogs how publishers are all evil, money-grubbing, rights-grabbing monsters. There are, of course, a number of amateur idiots out there who don't know what they are doing ("Hey guys, let's start a publishing house!") and there are a few big monstrous corporations (run by business boards, rather than editors) that may well be problematic; but most are honest brokers just trying to hold things together. Just as I continually invoke my motto, "The editor is not your enemy", I have to say that in the majority of cases, the publisher is also on your side-- and it would help if you were on his sometimes....